SOFTWARE TESTING ACADEMY

Excel for
Software Testers
How to use spreadsheet?

Stefan Blazhevski, June 2023

HOW WE STORE DATA?
➢ Text file
➢ Word document
➢ Excel workbook
➢ XML
➢ CSV

➢ How can we easy search in text file?

➢ How big our files can be?
➢ How consistent our data will be?
➢ Is is easy to manipulate the data? Brainster' s Software Testing Academy
Why is excel used:

• Store data
• Analyze data
• Work With Formulas and Functions
• Charting and Graphing
• Programming
• Almost anything that needs to be organised
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Intro
• Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program that is used to record
and analyze numerical data.
• Spreadsheet as a collection of columns and rows form a table.
• Alphabetical letters are usually assigned to columns and
numbers are usually assigned to rows.
• The point where a column and a row meet is called a cell.
• The address of a cell is given by the letter representing the
column and the number representing a row.
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Why do we use Excel in Software Testing?
● Test cases - Writing and execution
● Reporting - Writing defect reports
● Process management tracking
● Calculations
● Graphical data illustration
● Exporting data from other tools for analysis

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Cell Range

• A group of selected cells is called a range.

• The range is identified by its range reference (for example,
A3:C5).
• Mathematically, a range is the collection of values between a
maximum and a minimum value.

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Cell Range

• In Excel, a range is defined by the reference of the upper left cell

(minimum value) of the range and the reference of the lower right
cell (maximum value) of the range.
• Eventually separate cells can be added to this selection, then the
range is called an irregular cell range. In Excel, the minimum and
maximum value are included.

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VLOOKUP

• When you need to find some information in a large data-

spreadsheet, or you need to search for the same kind of
information throughout the spreadsheet use the VLOOKUP
function.
• VLOOKUP is designed to retrieve data in a table organized into
vertical rows, where each row represents a new record.

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• =VLOOKUP(What you want to look up, where you want to look for it,
the column number in the range containing the value to return, return
an Approximate or Exact match – indicated as 1/TRUE, or 0/FALSE).

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Arguments
• VLOOKUP - Calls the function
• value (required) - The value to look for in the leftmost column of a
table.
• table (required) - The table from which to retrieve a value.
• col_index (required) - The column in the table from which to
retrieve a value.
• range_lookup (optional) - TRUE = approximate match (default).
FALSE = exact match.

NOTE: The lookup values or the data you know have to be in the left-hand
column of your lookup table, i.e., your cell range.
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VLOOKUP
Returns
• The VLOOKUP function returns any datatype such as a string,
numeric value, date, etc.
• If you specify FALSE for the range_lookup parameter and no
exact match is found, then the VLOOKUP function will return
#N/A.
• If you specify TRUE for the range_lookup parameter and no
exact match is found, then the next smaller value is returned.
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VLOOKUP

• Returns
• If index_number is less than 1, the VLOOKUP function will
return #VALUE!.
• If index_number is greater than the number of columns in table,
the VLOOKUP function will return #REF!.

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Example
On “Orders” table, add new column named CompanyName. Fill this column with the
names of the companies. With VLOOKUP function you can find the company name using
the CustomerID from Orders table and CompanyName from Customers table.
Structure
VLOOKUP

On “Products” sheet, add a new column named Address. Fill this column
with suppliers’ addresses. With VLOOKUP you can find addresses using the
Supplier ID from “Products” table and Address from “Supplier” table

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VLOOKUP

On “Orders” sheet, add a new column named ContactName. Fill this

column with the names of Customers. With VLOOKUP you can find the
Contact Name using the CustomerID from Orders table and ContactName
from “Customers” table

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